In Memoriam – J. Gary Sparks 1948-2025

In a comment Gary posted to Daryl Sharp’s In Memoriam page on the Inner City Books’ blog, he said:

“When it is my time to cross over, I hope it is Daryl who meets me on the other side and helps me feel at home.”

It is very sad to say the words – Gary Sparks has indeed now crossed over. Gary brought a great warmth of eros into the world, while at the same time making a huge intellectual contribution to the collective and our understanding of Carl Jung’s still-expanding ideas.

Let’s see if I can even find the words to say how important Gary Sparks has been, and always will be, to everyone here at Inner City Books.

On paper, you can see that Gary Sparks is that rarest of Jungians – he started in the “hard” sciences before finding his way into the mind-expanding realm of the psyche and its dynamic imagery.

But he started off in electrical engineering! How much more grounded can you get?

To get an idea of the richness of Gary’s personal scholarship and pursuits, please visit the Speaking of Jung podcast website at www.speakingofjung.com. Gary did five interviews with Laura London, who really brings out his sense of humour as well as his insightful analysis of Jungian concepts in his books. And great stories. There are the stories of how he ate rice and beans as a student so he could afford to buy his own Collected Works, one $5 volume at a time. How he struggled to complete his Jungian training with Dieter Baumann (Jung’s grandson), C.A. Meier, and the legendary Marie-Louise von Franz as his thesis supervisor, and how challenged he was to stay dedicated to his vocation. He was saved by his faith in and willingness to stay open to synchronicity as an operating force. These interviews show very well that although Gary Sparks could speak the higher language of esoteric Jungian psychology as well as anyone – he never failed to bring home the gold for the rest of us to understand. He was a scholar, a seeker, and a storyteller of magical talents.

Gary’s websites (J. Gary Sparks, Home Page of Jungian Resources, Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli ) give you the scope of his work with the truly mind-bending concepts that Jung engaged with toward the end of his process, such as the marriage of matter and spirit, numbers, quantum physics, and its intersection with the world of the psyche. Gary amplified and continued some of the work that Marie-Louise von Franz began in collaboration with Jung. You’ll find studies of time, numbers, historical patterns of civilization, synchronicity, and their symbolism, significance and dynamics – the explication of ideas that are just too challenging for most of us to tackle, requiring significant knowledge of several different fields of study, but now rendered into language that speaks to our experience.

Gary wrote in a voice that somehow appealed to women as much as men – in an area of psychology that is often seen as essentialist and highly focussed on gender difference, he bridged the gap between masculine and feminine expression and understanding in a way I have never seen another Jungian writer manage, even though many have commented on the necessity for it.

But for Inner City Books, Gary Sparks was a special love.

He was a dear friend and kindred spirit to our founder, Daryl Sharp, whom Gary credits for being an agent of synchronicity who aided him in completing his analytical training. You can find that wonderful story on our blog, as written by Gary, or on Speaking of Jung’s excellent blog.

Daryl and Gary could never seem to call each other by their real names. In their correspondence, they always signed off with whimsical pet names for each other – a tradition that continues with Daryl’s “right hand man” and successor Scott Milligen, who is now heading Inner City Books. Gary was fond of writing fictitious reviews for Daryl’s Jungian romances. And he would also write favourable *genuine* Good Reads reviews of Daryl’s books under a pseudonym. That’s the kind of friend he was, although you could question whether the world needs reviews from *both* Indianapolis Beaver *and* New Age Yoni. The Venn diagram of their readership, if it existed, would probably be a single circle. He did know how to make Daryl laugh.

Gary was also a big part of the growth of the Jungian community in Toronto. He was a frequent visitor and lecturer in the early days of the Jung Foundation and analyst training centre that Daryl co-founded with Marion Woodman and Fraser Boa. Daryl encouraged Gary to submit his lectures for publication as Inner City Books titles. Gary also co-edited with Daryl a tribute to Edward F. Edinger, The Science of the Soul: A Jungian Perspective, and was editor of Edinger’s Ego and Self: The Old Testament Prophets.

Gary was incredibly supportive of Inner City Books during the transitional time following Daryl’s passing. He brought Scott an amazing new title, The Call of Destiny: An Introduction to Carl Jung’s Major Works. This book was an integration and analysis of what Gary sees as the most important elements of Jung’s work and four major publications in the later years of his life. In it, he summarizes the most important dynamic of the psyche as a “forward-striving function.”

However, my personal favourite is the personal manifesto that Gary wrote in 2017 that encourages all of us to see the real value in doing the work on ourselves even as the collective around us threatens to sink into chaos. That’s encouraging, inspiring and reassuring all at the same time. His book Carl Jung and Arnold Toynbee: The Social Meaning of Inner Work takes an ambitious look at the bridge he sees Toynbee and Jung building between broad sweeps of history and individual psychology, the cycles of empire growth and collapse, and how the individual psyche still has central importance in keeping civilization alive. No consciousness is wasted, he tells us, and the creative personality has a role to play in keeping the spark alive. We have no way of knowing what the outward rippling impact of our forward-striving function may be, but it’s our job while we’re here. And Gary did a great job.

Let’s imagine that he and Daryl did meet on the other side, and that they now know the secrets of the universe. They worked hard and well to serve their vocations, helped others find their path, and created their own lives in a way that was both authentic to them and meaningful to all of us. With comfort and ease, they are communing with the infinite.